Milford Graves Photo by David Mellins

2000 Guggenheim Fellowships: Milford Graves

Milford Graves attended City College of New York, New York Community College, and Eastern School for Physicians Aides, Occidental Institute of Chinese Studies. He has received numerous awards including the Down Beat International Award, the Critics award for best drummer, and a National Endowment for the Arts grant. He has appeared at New York's Town Hall, Judson Hall, Paris' Autumn Festival, the Laren Festival (Netherlands), the Antwerp Festival (Belgium) and the Festac Festival (Nigeria). He has toured Japan in 1977, 1981, 1985, 1988, and 1993 and has been the subject of a documentary which aired on Japanese national television. To date, he has made 21 recordings either as a leader or as a sideman in various ensembles. Committed to education, he taught at Bennington College (VT) since 1973 and has worked as a music consultant for P.S. 201 in Harlem and for the Board of Education in NY. He has also performed extensively at colleges nationwide.